


Nihakume (Second Night)

by wheezemadejaway



Series: Worth It: Japan Trip 2017 [4]
Category: Buzzfeed Worth It, Buzzfeed: Worth It, Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Religious Conflict, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 08:38:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12602628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheezemadejaway/pseuds/wheezemadejaway
Summary: “If you’re about to tell me that we need to talk,” Steven says, but even though his lips are moving it’s like someone else is speaking through him. “Please, don’t.”





	Nihakume (Second Night)

**Author's Note:**

> The title, Nihakume (二泊目), means the first second of a stay somewhere overnight.
> 
> This story the forth part in the "Japan Trip 2017" series. If you have not read it yet, please start with [Two Stops Until Shinjuku](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12424176), then continue on with [Ippakume (First Night)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12460257) and [Rie, How Do You Say 'Get Your Shit Together' In Japanese?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12493776)
> 
> Thank you always to Friend A., who humors me even when she's just started Nanowrimo.

Steven pushes the hotel room door closed with Andrew’s body, overpowering the startled “woah!” that Andrew elicits with the force of his kiss. Andrew’s head and shoulders hit solid wood with a dull thud, shaking the door on its hinges.

Andrew returns the kiss but then turns his head away to catch his breath, his stubble scratching Steven’s cheek. The friction strikes like matches.

It fuels the fire that’s been smoldering in Steven’s gut all day into an inferno, insatiable and all-consuming. This is their time, their space. In this moment, there is no doubt in his mind.

It’s what he wants.

And if he’s going to burn, he’s going to make sure that Andrew burns with him.

He reaches through the dark and instinctively finds the curve of Andrew’s ass, drawing their bodies closer together. He’s not disappointed by the heat against his thigh. Grinning, he hovers over Andrew’s neck, and is about to place his lips there, when--

“Steven, wait.” Andrew stops him with a firm hand to his shoulder and makes him take a step away.

It’s Hellfire and Brimstone, not a request, but a rejection. Steven staggers back, struck down.

Andrew flips on the lights. His breathing his labored, cheeks flushed pink, but his eyes are fierce and bright. It’s not anger that’s reflected there, but something worse: pity. It looks just like so many people that Steven has known, judging him.

_God, what am I doing?_

He cannot stop staring at Andrew, at the way that Andrew is trying so hard to regain control of himself.

Just like that, Steven’s flame is extinguished and replaced by an unbearable chill. He backs up further, sliding out of his shoes as Andrew does the same, both stepping up into the hotel room.

Andrew opens his mouth, then closes it, eyes darting up and to the left. The tips of his ears are crimson.

Steven already knows the conversation they’re about to have because he’s had so many variations of it in the past. Once with his mother when she found out he’d been “accidentally” leaving his lunches on the bus because the other kids at school teased him for eating chicken rice and not a PB&J. With his father when he’d decided to give up Chemical Engineering to chase the dream of starting his own YouTube channel and becoming Internet famous.

He’d even been the one to initiate it himself, with Ying after an evening of what was supposed to have been chaste cuddling, when she’d picked up his hand and guided it under her blouse. It had been so easy then to tell her that sex should wait until marriage.

Of course, that’s because he’s only ever been attracted to her platonically.

After last night, Steven can no longer truly convince himself that he’s so virtuous that he’s above feeling desire.

Andrew looks at him, squaring his shoulders, wetting his lips.

Steven wants to stop him speaking before he even starts, because the he doesn’t want to hear the words, not from Andrew. Not about this, not when he had been so sure that out of anyone in his life, Andrew would be the one to understand.

“If you’re about to tell me that we need to talk,” Steven says, but even though his lips are moving it’s like someone else is speaking through him. “Please, don’t.”

They keep their distance. Andrew finds a place against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why not?”

As Steven sits himself down on the bed, it’s almost as if he’s floating out of his own body.

The comforter is clean, made up perfectly as if what happened there last night had been just a dream. Too bad the memory is still so vivid.

Trying to ground himself, Steven’s hands round his knees, massaging them. He attempts a self-deprecating smile but can’t get it to go past the edges of his mouth.

_Concentrate._

The only feeling he manages to conjure up is resentment. His shoulders hunch forward naturally as he ducks his head.

It’s bad enough that Steven thought that Andrew was safe.

What’s worse is that he knows Andrew, who has once smiled and shook no his head when Steven invited him to attend Sunday church services, who shrugged and told him that God “just wasn’t his thing, but it’s cool,” is the one taking the moral high ground.

Andrew’s probably ashamed of how they’ve gone about doing what they’ve done, but not that they’ve done it.

For Steven, though, it’s the opposite, and he hates himself for admitting it.

 _What Ying doesn’t know can’t hurt her_ is only a variation of years of _as long as mom and dad don’t see me when I’m bad, then I am good._

He hardly hears himself talking when he finally speaks. “Don’t worry. I won’t touch you again.”

“That’s not… Steven, you know that’s not why…”

Steven doesn’t look up.

“It must be so easy to make the right decision when everyone you care about loves you for who you really are.”

It’s meant to wound. Andrew sucks in a breath of air, but all he replies with is a cautious, “Okay?”

“I don’t want to hurt Ying. I don’t want to hurt anybody.” The sentence feels clumsy in his mouth, which has gone dry trying to ignore a lump in his throat that he can’t swallow.

“I know.”

“Do you, though?”

“Yeah, Steven, because I see the way you work so hard to make everyone around you happy, even when that means you won’t be.”

With his head down Steven only hears Andrew speak, but from the corner of his eyes he observes the way that Andrew’s legs shift uncomfortably where he stands. Is he wanting to come closer, or is he going to leave?

 _Fuck this_ , Steven squares his jaw, nostrils flaring. The lump in his throat is growing and his eyes are burning, and before he realizes what is happening, Steven’s crying tears so big and round that he can see them as they soak into the dark denim of his jeans.

“Shit, Steven, no, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Andrew says as he crosses the room, but Steven doesn’t connect with the words until Andrew’s sitting down beside him, arms circling shoulders.

Steven chokes out a frustrated cry, pulling back, but Andrew won’t let him go. Unable to escape the embrace and too tired to fight, Steven crumples into Andrew instead.

“I am so sick of having to pretend all the time,” he speaks into Andrew’s neck, though he feels like he’s suffocating on each word.

“So don’t. Not with me.”

Andrew’s hands are on his back and neck, kneading gently.

A faint ringing begins to fill Steven’s ears, and he holds his breath. It was God talking, or at least that’s what his mom always used to tell him. It makes sense as the ringing gets louder and louder, drowning out everything until the high pitch is suddenly replaced by a throbbing behind his eyes.

It’s his punishment.

Andrew’s breath is painfully loud in his ear, and when he talks it no longer sounds far away, but much too close: “Hey. I’m not going anywhere, okay? I’m sticking around.”

Steven stops crying, and other than the pounding in his head that’s causing his vision swim, he feels nothing. Numb.

His body relaxes, as does Andrew’s grip on him.

“Alright,” Steven says easily, now that the lump in his throat has vanished. He gently pulls himself out of Andrew’s embrace and stands. Andrew’s looking up at him, he knows, but Steven turns his back before he closes and opens his eyes, trying to focus. “It’s been a long day. I guess I’m going to get ready for bed.”

Andrew is silent as Steven makes his way to the bathroom.

Once he’s inside, he makes sure to lock the door.


End file.
